A Veritable Forest

It was pitch black.

Her pupils dilated, adjusting to their new surroundings.

Shapes began to emerge from everywhere.

She slowly stood up and turned a 360 degrees, taking in her surroundings. Trees, their trunks thicker than what can be deemed normal, stretched towards the inky black sky, seemingly ignoring all possible rules of botany. Their branches rustled in the wind, spreading secrets, traitorously revealing her location to the predators. The undergrowth beneath the behemoth flora stretched to her height and blocked her view of what lay beyond. Nettles stuck to her clothes and were vicious enough to tear the cotton. She tried to gather her thoughts, trying to figure out how she had ended up here. She had gone out to dinner… At that place next to the woods.. How had she ended up in this dreary forest after a simple meal? Before she could retrieve that relevant chain of events from memory, a more immediate danger arose before her.

Somewhere beyond the shrubs, she could hear heavy threads on the moss-covered forest floor. Her breath began to deepen when she heard a distinct growl. Her heart rate sped up and those famed survival skills began to kick in. Faced with the choice presented by adrenaline, she chose the flight part of it. She began to move away from the sounds of the beast as quickly and quietly as possible. However, that was easier said than done. She stumbled, scrapped and fell among the undergrowth but somehow managed to keep moving away from the sounds, one step at a time. After what seemed like an eternity, she was blocked by a thick hedge of brambles which went way past her 5’7″ frame and which stretched to both sides as far as her still-weak eyes could see. Taking a deep breath, she tackled what seemed like the thinnest part and clawed away at the nettles, wincing as they cut through her hands. She grabbed a sharp stone from nearby and hacked through the sharpest ones. She was halfway in when suddenly, it gave way and she fell on the other side of the hedge, on to her hands.

She picked herself up and noticed, with considerable relief, that she had chanced upon a little clearing where the trees seemed to be in more earthy proportions and the air was not as balmy and thick. With another swoosh of relief, she noticed that the sounds of the beast could no longer be heard. All the fight and the flight left her and she slumped to the soft, moss-wrapped floor and curled up. She noticed a few purple berries nearby and idly wondered if they were edible. But the image of the protagonist from the Hunger Games struck her mind and she remembered her words of how not to eat any berries which are not recognisable in the forest. Considering the fact that she was a city girl who only ever saw berries in ice cream flavours and in those boxes at the supermarket, she decided to follow those words. After all, it made the girl and the franchise millions of dollars. She burrowed further into her mossy hollow and tried to ignore the gnawing in her stomach. The sound of the cicadas and the crickets slowly lulled her into a restless sleep. After what seemed like only a couple of seconds, she jerked awake and wondered what had woken her up. She didn’t have to deliberate for long. It was staring her right in the face. Literally. The beasts had breached the barrier.

They surrounded her in a circle. An elephant, its tusks grotesquely long and sharp and its eyes glinting with surprising venom. An ape, five times her length and twice her breadth towered over her, its eyes oddly glazed over. A bear was slouched over at one side, its humongous arms nullifying the image of friendliness she always associated with them. A flock of unidentifiable birds flew overhead, their beaks sharp and glinting in the low light and their unnaturally long bodies intimidating. Her eyes frantically took in all the animals surrounding her, each one’s physical attributes dangerously elongated or sharpened, as though specifically meant to scare her out of her wits. Her wide eyes landed on the scariest of them all; a jet black jaguar, its seemingly innocent face in shocking contrast with its sharp talons and yellow teeth which were at present bared at her. Low grumbles vibrated from its body and it padded slowly towards her. The other animals took their cue from the jaguar and began to close in on her. She began to sweat with fear and frantically began to search for a way out, but there was none. The bird began to peck her head and she tried to cover herself with her hands but to no avail. The bear lazily swiped at her and she screamed with pain at the deep cuts left. Out of nowhere, the innocent forest floor transformed into a marshy swamp and she immediately sank under. The mud trapped her to the waist and she began to scream for help. The jaguar, pleased at such easy prey, came towards her head with its mouth wide open. All rational thought left her head and she wildly wondered whether this would really be the end, at the hands of a wild animal, in the middle of a swamp in a jungle. Somewhere at the back of her mind, the still-sensible part chimed in with the thought of just how impossibly unrealistic this situation was. Just then, the jaguar’s jaws closed in on her head..

She shot awake, drenched in sweat. She sat up in bed, her heart still racing fast and her mind whirling. Was that really a dream? She stumbled out of her bed and switched on the bedside lamp. Walking over to the desk, she shakily took a gulp of water to calm down. Her eyes fell on her overcrowded bed. The elephant, the monkey, the bear, the bird and the cat.

She had finally outgrown her stuffed animal collection.